Hippo statue taken from 4-year-old Massachusetts girl’s grave

The family of a 4-year-old girl who died after battling brain cancer is feeling devastation again after thieves stole a statue of a hippo that stood near the girl’s Massachusetts grave.

Erin Roderick was diagnosed with brain cancer at 10 months old, and her family said she carried a stuffed hippo, which she named “Purple Hippo,” throughout her entire battle, MyFoxBoston.com reported

“It was constant treatment, radiation chemotherapy, surgeries and through it all she had her stuffed hippo with her,” Erin’s mother Michelle told MyFoxBoston.com. “She loved that hippo with all her being and she would treat it like a person,” she said.

When Erin died shortly before her fifth birthday in 2009, the family buried the hippo with her, and placed a statue of a purple hippo ballerina at her grave.

Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee evisceratedBraulio Castillo, the CEO of Strong Castle, Inc., who used an injury he sustained at a military prep school to qualify for a veterans disability, 27 years after the fact.

“I’m sorry that twisting your ankle in [prep] school has now come back to hurt you in such a painful way — if not also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts,” Duckworth said.